Physics & Math, features and articles | Educational Science

Oct 4, 2018

Physicist Who Coined 'God Particle' Dies. And a Great Voice for Science Is Stilled.

It is a sad day in science. Dr. Leon Lederman has passed away at the age of 96. Leon was a legend in the world of particle physics. Known perhaps most for coining the phrase “The God Particle,” in his book of the same name, Leon had a distinguished scientific...

Oct 17, 2018

Physicists Model Electrons in Unprecedented Detail — Spoiler Alert: They're Round

Electrons are extremely round, and some physicists are not pleased about it. A new experiment captured the most detailed view of electrons to date, using lasers to reveal evidence of particles surrounding the particles, researchers reported in a new study. By lighting up molecules, the scientists were able to interpret...

Nov 21, 2018

What Do Shrink-Wrapped Thanksgiving Turkeys and the Higgs Boson Have in Common?

(Inside Science) — Each Thanksgiving, millions of Americans tote turkeys home from the store. If you find yourself plopping a fresh, shrink-wrapped bird into your cart, you can thank particle physicists for the sturdy, shelf life-extending packaging. That's because the food industry makes shrink wrap using a tool first developed...

Dec 4, 2018

Humanity's Largest Atom Smasher Takes a Pause, Will Wake Up Again in 2021

Particles: Breathe easy. Scientists at the world's largest particle collider have no plans to smash you together until spring 2021. When you update your computer, you usually have to turn it off and back on again. The same thing is going on right now at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC)...

Dec 23, 2018

In 10 Years, the Large Hadron Collider Was a Smash — with More Discoveries to Come

Back in 2008, a beam of protons first zipped around the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the world's most powerful particle accelerator. Now, a decade later, it is time to take stock of what we've learned thanks to this facility and what lies ahead. This accounting includes both future research that...

Jan 2, 2019

What a Tiny Electron Reveals About the Structure of the Universe

What is the shape of an electron? If you recall pictures from your high school science books, the answer seems quite clear: an electron is a small ball of negative charge that is smaller than an atom. This, however, is quite far from the truth. The electron is commonly known...

Jan 12, 2019

Why Physicists Are Hunting the Strangest of the Ghost Particles

Every single second of every single day, you are being bombarded by trillions upon trillions of subatomic particles, showering down from the depths of space. They blow through you with the strength of a cosmic hurricane, blasting in at nearly the speed of light. They're coming from all over the...

Jan 16, 2019

Physicists Want to Build an Even More Powerful Atom Smasher at CERN

The universe is filled with particles we don't know about that are governed by rules we don't yet understand. But by smashing familiar particles together at nearly the speed of light using large machines aptly named particle accelerators, physicists can sometimes glimpse the invisible. Now, they have a plan to...

Jan 31, 2019

Hyperfast Shock Waves from a Supernova Heat Atoms to Blazing-Hot Temperatures

On Feb. 23, 1987, the light from a giant, exploding star reached Earth. The event, which took place in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a small galaxy 168,000 light-years away that circles our Milky Way, was the closest supernova to occur in nearly 400 years, and the first since the invention...

Feb 22, 2019

A 'Dragon Aurora' Appeared in the Sky Over Iceland, and NASA Is a Little Confused

A gargantuan green dragon hisses in the sky over Iceland. Either Game of Thrones really upped its production budget for its final season, or the sun belched a barrage of charged particles into our atmosphere again. As much as any of us would like to see a real dragon breathe...

Feb 25, 2019

Physicists Just Solved a 35-Year-Old Mystery Hidden Inside Atomic Cores

Here's a mysterious truth that scientists have known since 1983: Protons and neutrons act differently when they're inside an atom, versus floating freely through space. Specifically, the subatomic particles that make up those protons and neutrons, called quarks, slow down massively once they're confined to a nucleus in an atom....

Mar 1, 2019

Where Are All the 'Sparticles' That Could Explain What's Wrong with the Universe?

The governing theory of particle physics explains everything about the subatomic world … except for the parts that it doesn't. And unfortunately, there aren't a lot of flattering adjectives that can be applied to the so-called Standard Model. Built up bit by bit over the course of decades, this theory...

Apr 1, 2019

Physicists Just Detected a Very Odd Particle That Isn't a Particle at All

It sounds like the start of a very bad physics riddle: I'm a particle that really isn't; I vanish before I can even be detected, yet can be seen. I break your understanding of physics but don't overhaul your knowledge. Who am I? It's an odderon, a particle that's even...

Apr 17, 2019

The Quest to Find One of the Most Elusive Particle Decays in the Universe

Transmuting one element into another (usually gold, of course) was the stuff of fevered dreams and fanciful imaginations for alchemists way back in the day. It turns out that nature does it all the time without any help from us — though not usually into gold. This natural alchemy, called...

Apr 23, 2019

What Makes the Strong Force So Special?

All four known forces of nature have their own unique place. Gravity, electromagnetism, weak nuclear, strong nuclear: Each one governing some little domain of our lives. While our everyday experiences are dominated by the gravity of the Earth and the electromagnetism of light and fridge magnets, the twin nuclear forces...